Quarantine Diary #661 Mistakes

This is a lemming. Make mistakes this year, but don’t make the lemming mistake.

1/4/2022

This morning, while looking in our under-the-fridge freezer for soup for supper (neither of us want to cook today), we discovered a towel-wrapped lettuce. What can I say? It’s a whole new mistake to make that we have never made before.

We were putting our groceries away in a hurry last Thursday evening. I DO remember rinsing and wrapping the lettuce in that towel, which (if you don’t put it in the freezer) makes lettuce last longer. I don’t remember actually putting it in the freezer but this is possible. Or Len did. This is an equal opportunity mistakes-making home.

…

Welcome to the New Year. There are things to do and mistakes to make and I hope the mistakes are no worse than frozen lettuce.

…

Here is an interesting (to me) thing. The occupational therapist at the rehab hospital tested Len’s readiness to drive this way. Len had to walk up and down (she was along to supervise) all four corridors of the hospital. While two-handedly passing a tennis ball around himself in a circle from front to back to front to back. While reading the names of the people in the rooms as they walked past them. He did this very well, though it was the closest he’d been to a tennis ball since we had a dog.

I guess this is how to not make too many mistakes.

• Balance and locomotion should be instinctual and smooth. If it isn’t, practice more.
• Invent new ways to move – some of us should dance or build and fashion new things way more than we do. Play-dough might upgrade our dexterity. 
• Look around at what is slightly different and notice what we are seeing.

Yesterday we went to Madison to visit our kids. I drove there. Len drove us home. It’s newish for me to expect myself to do half the driving, so I guess I’m changing a little. It’s awesome that Len can drive again.

…

When we were dating Len took me to a small theater production of a weird play about Arctic explorers. I have just looked online for way too long and I can’t find any clues as to what that play it was. Anyways, there was a scene where one of the explorers was ill and not getting better. The other guys were trying to help him but couldn’t; meanwhile their supplies were running out. The sick but nobly gallant guy gets up and says he’s going for a walk. This is the Arctic or Antarctica in a blizzard. He goes outside, unzips his parka, wanders off to die while making a heartfelt speech.

So here we are in Omicron and there are moments I think I will just wander into a grocery store, tear off my mask, and make a speech about the great life I was privileged to have.

This is my attempt at dark humor. Because seriously, what other kind of humor is there, these days?

We had a lovely quiet New Years weekend. Again. Not sure I really wanted to read more novels and then fall sound asleep at 9:20 on NY Eve. But I did. Watching a lit-up Times Square ball drop on a 26” TV screen is not something I cared to spend three more hours to watch.

This is where we are now.

What are you doing, besides going to work in a hazmat suit, to get through this thick part of quarantine? Again?

...

In case you would like to read something that actually informs your life, I have been meaning for a while to mention the daily posts of Heather Cox Richardson. Click here:  Heather Cox Richardson on Substack 

The woman is smart and her writing is clear. Of all the things I pay attention to as I try to keep up with what's happening around us, I think her daily letter is the best.